Moses John
Nigeria Civil Service Union (NCSU) has called on the Federal Government to urgently consider scrapping of tax holiday/waivers to multinational companies whose purpose is to bribe government officials thereby denying the nation the opportunity to generate revenue for the development of the country.
National President and General Secretary of the union, Comrade Kiri Mohammed and comrade Gerald Ukeni, respectively, in a statement to commemorate the 2014 World Public Service Day, made available to journalists, also said the privatisation and outsourcing policy of government have increased unemployment in Nigeria.
The union however lamented that the programmes have created a wide gap between the rich and the poor, adding while the rich are getting richer, the poor are becoming more poorer.
The statement added that neo-liberalism has caused immense harm to social services in Nigeria and will continue to do so through corruption which seems to have been legalised.
According to them, the strength and resilience of nation-states depends largely on public service which posses knowledge and skills in the formation and implementation of government socio-economic policies.
The statement reads in parts, “The union also frowns at number of scandals surrounding the so called security votes which allow politicians to appropriate billions of naira behind closed doors simple by evoking national security.
“As a result, funds that are meant to provide social services and pay decent wages go down the drain unaccountable. The union is equally convinced that there exist a nexus between privatisation and corruption which reinforces our belief to work with other civil community based organisation to oppose privatisation and outsourcing of public work which creates additional windows for corruption.”
The union advocated effective legal and disciplinary sanctions to deal with all forms corruption.